Bad News
The independent media are complaining about the FCC ruling that will permit greater concentration of media ownership. But really, can the corporate media get any worse?

David M. Fine | June 5, 2003

" This tube is the most awesome, god-damned force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people…Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communication Corporation of America…And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome, god-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network. So, you listen to me! Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television is a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, story tellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the truth, go to your God, go to your gurus, go to yourselves because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth. But man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear..."

"...So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!"

A couple weeks ago I walked into a room where CNN was covering a press conference of the sobbing relatives of Laci Peterson. One by one her relatives would get up on stage and, while crying, recount tales of the Laci they all new.

Broadcast news is only occasionally really news. Most of the time it is more Reality TV, the circus that the enlightened madman in "Network" yelled at his audience about, revealing to the world what should be a private moment, in this instance for the Peterson family. Murder, trials, natural disasters, or scandals like Martha Stewart's legal troubles are the kind of meaningless, vapid garbage we can count on from the corporate media.

The recent Federal Communications Commission ruling, which permits companies to own television stations which reach up to 45 percent of the U.S. market, is just as meaningless. Michael Copps, a Democrat on the FCC panel who voted against the ruling, said it would give today's "new media elite.. unacceptable levels of influence."

What planet does Mr. Copps live on? The "corporate media elite" have been gradually amassing their portfolios over the past twenty years. It's no secret. CNN is part of the AOL Time Warner empire. NBC is a subsidiary of General Electric. Fox News is the prize of billionaire Rupert Murdoch. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, Cox Enterprises owns 17 local newspapers, 11 local TV stations, and more than a dozen local radio stations, several in the same city. Gannett owns USA Today, a gob of local newspapers, and 17 television stations. The media, if not owned by big business, simply is big business. (Click here for more on ownership)

And the corporate elite pay the corporate media elites' bills by advertising on their airwaves and in their newspapers. It's one big incestuous corporate orgy. We can forget about media ownership rules making any substantive changes. You get what you pay for.

That's why the only decent news, the only truly challenging news, news that helps American citizens be informed citizens, is, for the most part, to be found on public television and radio, in a handful of newspapers, and in small, independent subscription-based magazines.

Congress created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting "to facilitate the development of public telecommunications and to afford maximum protection from extraneous interference and control." (my emphasis). That is, protection from the pressure of corporate owners and advertisers.

And Congress has been very supportive of public programming, increasing funding for the CPB from $250 million in 1999 to $380 million in 2002. (CPB offers on its website a breakdown of how we pay for our public media )

If we are truly concerned about media independence, we will continue this growth in funding of public and independent media, even accelerate it, and consider using funds to create a national news cable channel to compete with the likes of CNN and Fox News. To keep them honest, so to speak.

~ David M. Fine

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Related Links

"My Beef With Big Media," by Ted Turner, Washington Monthly